In 1972, a Dutch journalist named Anton Witkamp conceived an idea for a football match that was simple, clever but deeply flawed.
What if, he postulated, the winners of the European Cup played the winners of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in an annual event? Wouldn’t that determine the real kings of the continent?
With the influence of his newspaper De Telegraaf behind him, he approached UEFA for guidance who were initially sceptical about the scheme, pointing out that one of the first two participants in the game would be Rangers. The Scottish club had recently been banned from all European competition following crowd trouble.
So it was that football’s governing body pulled out of backing the competition resulting in De Telegraaf funding the game, for its opening year at least. It should also be highlighted at this juncture that Witkamp was a huge Ajax fan, the other team that featured.
Having another marquee continental match starring Holland’s biggest team was naturally a significant plus for the paper.
If the origins of the Super Cup are based in self-interest however it remains a fixture on football’s calendar to this day and it would be nice to state that it has gone from strength to strength ever since but that would be a lie. It still perplexes even those who give a single fig about it.
It would be gratifying too, if we could say it’s been an ever-present from 1972 to now but again that would be untrue. In 1974, 1981 and 1985 the game never took place, the latter because English clubs were banned from Europe, the former two due to scheduling problems.
Regardless, on August 16th, Manchester City take on Sevilla in the seemingly random surroundings of the Karaiskakis Stadium in Greece and this brings us to the flawed reasoning behind the clash, one that has been evidenced many times over in the Super Cup’s short-ish history.
Because no matter what transpires in beautiful Athens categorically won’t determine who are the kings of the continent. That would be Manchester City, who won Europe’s most prestigious tournament in May, beating Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Inter Milan along the way.
Sevilla, meanwhile, a team that finished 12th in La Liga last term, lost 7-1 on aggregate to City in the group stage of that very same competition, before dropping down to its inferior cousin, the Europa League, that being the modern-day equivalent of the Cup Winners’ Cup.
Should the Spanish side upset the online betting odds therefore and triumph over Pep Guardiola’s men, it would hardly make them the best team in Europe.
Played so early in the season it would simply suggest they are currently the fitter of the two and perhaps even the side taking it the most seriously.
Our football tips page is backing the Blues for the win which would render this argument moot anyway, but there have been plenty of times previously when the inferior team have prevailed. Zenit St Petersburg in 2008 comes to mind. As too does Galatasaray eight years earlier.
Pitting the winners of two competitions of varying difficulties but offering up the same stature for the victor undermines the basic premise behind the Super Cup. And if people cared one iota about it, they would surely agree.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
